TRADITIONAL herbal remedies do have benefits in helping to combat or cure diseases such as cancer and diabetes, according to research unveiled yesterday.

Medicines used for centuries by indigenous tribes in India, Africa and Asia were examined by scientists at the Department of Pharmacy at King's College London, who found they contained active ingredients which fight disease.

The results were hailed by homoeopathic doctors as an important step in providing scientific justification for herbal remedies and countering the notion that they are prescribed as placebos or "quack" cures.

The results come as Scottish Executive figures show the annual cost of NHS prescription drugs rose 8%, to (pounds) 839m in 2003-4. This is in line with previous increases, bringing the average cost of drug treatments to (pounds) 171 for every person registered with a GP in Scotland.

The King's researchers studied the curry-leaf tree, or Murraya koenigii, which is used in India as a cure for diabetes and is found in many curry dishes.

Extracts of the tree were found to slow the rate of starch breakdown, which in turn led to a more even trickle of glucose into the bloodstream. This can help diabetics, who do not produce enough insulin to cope with rapid rises in blood glucose levels.

Professor Peter Houghton, who led the scientists, said: "The curry-leaf is used to control diabetes in traditional Indian medicine. It is not an uncommon ingredient in some curries and it is quite possible that people who take this regularly could control diabetes."

Other treatments include Ghanian wound-healing agents and cancer therapies used in Thai and Chinese medicine.

Professor Houghton told the British Pharmaceutical Conference, in Manchester , that the cancer treatments "do appear to have anti- cancer activity". Laboratory tests found extracts from the Thai plant Ammannia baccifera and the Chinese plant Illicium verum inhibited the growth of cancer cells.

Research also found that plants used by one of the largest ethnic groups in Ghana, the Ashantis, helped wound-healing. An extract of Commelina diffusa, or climbing dayflower, was shown to have both antibacterial and antifungal properties.

Edzard Ernst, professor of complementary medicine at the Peninsula Medical School in Exeter, Devon, told the BBC yesterday the research was "very interesting, very promising", but added: "This type of study can only be the first step in a line of research it's necessary to have good clinical proof that this works."

Debate over the effectiveness of homoeopathic medicine has become particularly heated in the west of Scotland, where a proposal to close a unit at Glasgow's Homoeopathic Hospital is being examined by health managers.

From Healthy.net